Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer: 'Sonnet van een verloren duel' in English translation

Sonnet of a lost duel

in which the astrophysicist Stephen

Hawking (1942-2018) is commemorated

The mighty mind was little more than mind

that seemingly for black holes sought to speak.

The unbroken man who could not help but break

was manless most of life in humankind.

God’s degradation was what he embraced

by cynically explaining his creation.

By claiming God too mortal his equation

was QED’d for what God had laid waste.

‘A man’s a man for all that’ each man shares,

though bodiless. The stars were his domain,

and so God made of him a superstar.

And fame led him astray. So unawares

the duel caught him out, his bearers plain

amazed a voiceless bier weighs less by far.